


Black

by thehonestman (orphan_account)



Category: K-pop, NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, sex as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:33:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25558894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thehonestman
Summary: On the days when Mark drives Donghyuck home from the park, it’s with the excuse that 'choir practice ran late' and that’s enough for a family kind and damaged enough to let Mark into their home.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 5
Kudos: 79





	Black

Mark essentially blacks out whenever he catches a sight of Donghyuck. It’s unhealthy, he knows it, and the other boys in his neighborhood always tell him to _stay away from that kid_ , but he can’t help it, for two distinct reasons. One being that he only allows himself to indulge fully in his secret obsession, this guilty pleasure that is Donghyuck every once in a while. And two being that they’re the kind of childhood friends that know things about each other, things like how they taste and how they touch and how they feel—both inside and out, that is. On the inside, Mark knows that they’re both feeling pretty horrible at all times but they have each other to help drive the pain away.

Everyday, Mark gives Donghyuck a ride home from school because he’s younger and can’t drive himself and Mark won’t let him walk home on his own. Some days, Mark just watches Donghyuck throw his pretty head out the window, golden hair flying in the breeze as he catches his breath for the first time all day, before bringing him home safe and sound. Most days, however, the drive home takes longer than it should because Mark takes a detour, pulling over into an abandoned parking lot and fucking Donghyuck hard in the back seat of his beat-up hatchback. 

The sex is unhealthy and unsafe, and both know this, but still Donghyuck wants it like he’s ever wanted anything in his life. He clings to Mark like a lifeline, lets him do whatever he wants to him without asking or telling. Looking down at those big, watery eyes and chewed-up lips, Mark wants to spit on him. But Donghyuck deserves better than that. He’s moody and dramatic and has an easy heart to break but Mark knows he has a sick mother at home in a neighborhood that’s no good to him. He doesn’t need it any worse.

The one thing that never fails to stop Mark from putting himself out of his misery and leaving Donghyuck for good is Donghyuck’s family. On the days when he drives Donghyuck home from the park, it’s with the excuse that _choir practice ran late_ and that’s enough for a family kind and damaged enough to let Mark into their home. They trust him with their son, mainly because they’d known him as a child, but they probably wouldn’t if they knew how Mark uses his son’s body and vice versa. But they’ll never find out. And so Mark doesn’t leave, because he can’t. Not when Donghyuck’s mother is bedridden like that, not when she looks at him with brief recognition and a weak smile before fading out to sleep. 

Finally he leaves when Donghyuck has resigned to his bedroom and he knows that tired boy gets to breathe again. Mark pulls away and heads home, tearing his own hair out along the way for giving in once again.

The next morning, he applies concealer under his eyes to cover up his lack of sleep.

* * *

“I’ll come visit you at your college,” Donghyuck says. From across the table Mark looks at him, pauses his sipping briefly as he instead digests what’s been said. Donghyuck had insisted on this specific coffee shop because there’s time and he’s afraid to see Mark’s parents. He doesn’t know how much they know about him these days, but he doesn’t need the pity or interaction with people outside of Mark at all. Going to school is bad enough; he doesn’t need his weekends bothered too.

So they’re in a coffee shop where Mark had ordered their drinks so that Donghyuck didn’t have to talk to the barista.

“I would expect nothing less,” is all Mark says, because he doesn’t want to commit to too much excitement. This—college—he realizes, will be the ultimate test of their _relationship_ , if you could call it that.

But Mark picks his drink back up and watches how Donghyuck sucks his straw with a little too much vigor.

* * *

It turns out that the ultimate test of their relationship is when Donghyuck watches Mark with a girl.

* * *

The one time that Donghyuck actually shows up to Mark’s house unannounced proves to be the biggest regret of his life, and he knows he should have just stayed at home. But there was nothing going on at home, nothing other than the regular silence and stagnance and negligence, so he’d ventured to Mark’s house alone. Funnily enough, he’d thought about it along the way that Mark would hate him if he found out what he was doing. The thought of collapsing into Mark’s arms had driven him closer, but his heart stops when he arrives at Mark’s house and sees his silhouette in the window.

He’s standing upright and obviously shirtless, and the muffled voices tell him that he’s speaking to someone in his bed. Inching closer to the second-story window, Donghyuck stays low behind some brush as he watches Mark turn from a silhouette into a clear figure. A clear figure accompanied by another—that of a woman, lying topless, flat on her back in the middle of Mark’s bed.

“Touch me,” she whispers. The window is cracked open to air out the room, a trick that Donghyuck recognizes in Mark’s procedure. Where it once served him now just hurts. “You never want to touch me.”

Donghyuck’s stomach curls at the realization that this is not their first meeting. But he continues watching, even as Mark closes in on the bed, straddling the girl and bringing one hand down to fondle her. She rears up a bit, and tries to bring Mark’s hands up to her breasts. He’s clearly hesitant, if the way he avoids eye contact with her says anything. Donghyuck thinks that at least, Mark had never treated him like that. And for a strange brief second, he also feels bad for the girl he’s with, a girl who clearly keeps trying with someone who can’t give her what she needs.

“You want me to touch you?” Donghyuck hears next. His breathing slows to a near stop as he starts to see Mark actually in action. He kisses her neck and doesn’t look as he pulls off her panties, touches her, and enters her. It’s perverse and disgusting, and the music is not loud enough and the lights are too bright but Donghyuck just can’t stop watching, can’t stop staring at the way Mark’s slim but powerful thighs shake with speed and the way his strong hands grip the blanket around her head. It’s strange, to see him like this, and for the brief moment where he enjoys it he forgets about what it means for him.

But when he remembers, he pulls away from the window and calls Mark’s cell phone.

“Hello?” Mark finally answers after several rings. From Donghyuck’s new position, Mark is once again a silhouette. He’s still leaning over the girl, and Donghyuck’s stomach turns at the thought that he might still be inside her as they speak.

“Hey,” he says, trying to steady his voice. “Can you come over?”

There is a pause before Mark answers, and Donghyuck watches the girl claw at his thighs.

“It’s late.”

“ _Please_ ,” Donghyuck says again with clear intention. Mark sighs, runs his hand through his hair. 

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll call you again in a bit.”

As Mark hangs up the phone, Donghyuck hurries back over to the window with a deflated ego but he needs to see how this plays out. He’s not new to Mark’s sexual insecurity, but he hadn’t known that it got to the point of actually sleeping with girls—or rather, forcing himself to do so. He’d known it since they started whatever it is they have, from the day Mark had asked him to go down on him but not look at him while he’s doing it. To not say anything or touch him. Donghyuck had thought he’d come a long way, but it’s sickening to see what he’s built up for them destroyed in front of his eyes.

As he returns to the window, Mark tries yet again to enter the girl and keep going, but she pushes him away with contempt and starts to gather her clothes.

“It’s that boy again, I know it is.” Mark looks like a lost child, frozen in place where he stands and unable to form a sentence as the girl creates a storm around him. “You always do this. Every time we get together you say it’s going to be just us, but you always put him before everything else. Isn’t that right?”

“No,” Mark says, but Donghyuck wishes it was. “He’s just a kid, it’s nothing. Please,” he begs as he reaches for her hand. She lets him take it briefly.

“I’m not doing this. You need to work out whatever the fuck is going on with you. I belived you when you told me you liked me but that’s clearly not true,” she keeps talking while Mark tries to silence her, “I’m not going to be running around fucking with some kid who can’t figure out what he’s really about.”

It’s at this point that Donghyuck leaves, picks up his bike and heads home before Mark can catch up to him. He doesn’t need to see the end of this story, doesn’t need to run into this girl outside Mark’s house so he leaves quickly and silently. The city lights are calming amid the pitch black sky, along with the few bystanders in the dark streets. Just before arriving home, Mark calls him again and tells him that he’s on his way over. Donghyuck drags himself into his bedroom, having no one to avoid as his mother has been transferred to the hospital and his father is by her side, for the night.

When Mark arrives he doesn’t question anything, but looks like he hasn’t put effort into cleaning himself up much since his last activity. His hair is out of place but his sweatshirt is soft and inviting.

“What’s going on?” he asks, leaning into Donghyuck in the bed. It creaks with the movement.

Donghyuck hadn’t planned on confronting him anyway, but the way Mark looks at him makes that actually impossible. He’s soft and warm and sweet and kisses him gently on the cheek as he pulls himself around him and holds him close, as though he’s found him as a second body, for the night.

Donghyuck tries not to think about where his hands have just been or whether his clothes are clean or the fact that his heart is beating so fast Mark might hear it, like a whisper through a window. But instead he leans against Mark’s chest and says, “Nothing, I just wanted to see you.”

It’s very clearly out of character, but the part of Donghyuck that craves Mark’s attention gets set aside in order to make room for the part of Mark that he knows secretly craves his own. For the most part Donghyuck is mad: he feels cheated on and used, feels like a broken boy with a broken home who had finally found someone to fix it but Mark has gone and ruined everything. But the slight indifference that Mark usually shows him clearly runs deeper than he’d always known, and he knows it’s only a matter of time before Mark leaves again for the night to face his own demons in the moonlight.

* * *

Things are different after that night. Donghyuck settles on the kind but distant approach, which in turn makes Mark distant and angry. Mark is not interested in being Donghyuck’s therapist, won’t venture in to find out why he’s upset. Donghyuck sees this, of course, but his stubbornness is unrelenting: he makes pleasant conversation in the car but choir practice never runs late anymore. Mark takes this as a sign that things are ending soon. Maybe, he thinks, this is an excuse to get away and never come back. College is coming so soon anyway, so Mark secretly wonders if something has broken in Donghyuck that could be a fair excuse to not have to deal with himself anymore.

Something has broken, it turns out. And it’s exactly what Mark both hopes for and fears.

* * *

“Mom died,” is the first thing Mark hears when he picks up the phone. No _hello,_ no _come over_ , just _mom died._

“I know,” Mark responds. “My parents told me.” He hears sniffling from the other end of the call. “Hyuck, I’m—”

“Come over,” he cuts in. Mark bites his lip, presses the phone a bit tighter to his head and tips his head up to God before agreeing.

“Okay.”

As soon as he walks into the room, he can tell that Donghyuck is barely holding himself together. He doesn’t greet him verbally, just throws himself at Mark fervently as soon as the door is pulled shut. Mark hardly has time to take in the situation, the state of Donghyuck’s bedroom which usually tells him so much about his current emotional status, because he is consumed with catching Donghyuck’s body, catching his lips with his own in an animalistic kiss as though he tries to expel every emotion from his body and throw it into Mark’s.

Mark pulls back briefly to look him in the face, and in it, he sees the poster child for grief.

Donghyuck’s eyes are swollen and raw, his skin is red as though he’s been rubbing his nose and wiping away his tears in the aggressive way he always does. He’s unshaven, not that he grows much facial hair, but his normal grooming has obviously been neglected. He looks frantic and afraid, like a caged puppy dying to escape. Mark suspects he hasn’t slept.

“Do you want to talk?” he asks, but Donghyuck shakes his head.

“No,” he says. He mumbles something inaudible as he drops down to his knees, pulling Mark closer in a harsh jerking motion as he does so. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at Mark, doesn’t touch him at all beyond undressing him and taking him into his mouth. He lets himself choke on Mark and Mark doesn’t pull back until he’s done. Donghyuck still looks sad when he stands up but Mark still takes him there in his bed, fucks him rough and loud because no one’s in the house and Donghyuck looks very pretty when he cries.

From above, Mark asks, “are you sure you don’t want to talk?” but Donghyuck just throws his head back against the bed, holds his legs up and cries with his brows painfully furrowed until Mark doesn’t know what to do anymore besides put a hand over his face and wipe his tears.

“No,” he pants, words punctuated between thrusts as he rides up higher on the bed, “ _no, no, no_.”

Mark doesn’t leave until Donghyuck is asleep, passes by his parents’ bedroom with a tired sense of ease and a knot in his stomach as he realizes that all his ideas of putting Donghyuck in the past have potentially been shattered. He loves him more than he’s loved anything and he’ll keep driving him home from school, but he doesn’t know if it’s the kind of love that he can ever admit to himself.

* * *

The silence of the car is broken when Donghyuck speaks up for the first time since leaving school.

“You don’t have to drive me home anymore, if it’ll make it easier for you to avoid me.”

Trying to think back to the easier days of playing with Donghyuck as a child, Mark tries to settle himself down and act like he has no idea what Donghyuck is talking about. He slows the car down a bit, but grips the steering wheel with anxiety. Donghyuck is turned toward him in his seat.

“I’m not avoiding you,” he says, the words ending abruptly with the silent implication that he has more to say. An explanation, perhaps. But he does not, and when he stays quiet, Donghyuck takes it like a punch to the gut. He sighs through his nose.

“I know what’s going on,” he says vaguely, and Mark doesn’t know what he means. “I know I’ve been clingy, so I know what you’ve been up to, and it’s just because I like you and I was upset about Mom but it’s fine now, and I’m sorry.” But it’s not fine. “I’ll leave you alone, from now on.”

Mark can’t handle this, the confrontation of his feelings. They’ve never done this. They don’t _do_ this. He grips the steering wheel harder, swerves a bit in the road, which forces Donghyuck to look away. Through gritted teeth, he says:

“I don’t want you to leave me alone.”

Donghyuck looks on at him for a moment, then turns back to face the windshield. Mark purposely doesn’t look to see his face, just focuses on the road himself as they approach the abandoned parking lot with mounting speed.

* * *

Mark curses himself as he pulls over into the parking lot. This kid he’s known forever—this kid who depends on him is broken and lonely and is telling him how he feels and still he can’t figure out what to do to fix it, so instead he just does what he knows. He fucks Donghyuck hard in the back seat of his car in silence, and obeys for once when Donghyuck says _hurt me_. Donghyuck’s fingers reach in front of him and grip the door handle as though he’s trying to get out but he’s not. But Mark still flips him over anyway and takes him on his back, hard and desperate. They both cry the whole time, but amidst those tears Mark looks Donghyuck in the face and finds that he actually looks at peace, for once—hair falling freely around his face and chest relaxed with the very flow of ecstasy. Maybe, then, it’ll be easy to leave for college if Donghyuck is at peace, at least for now.

Mark tries to focus on that peace instead of the fact that he’s leaving soon, and he’s not coming back for this boy. Or the fact that he’s unintentionally made Donghyuck so dependent on him but perhaps he’s equally co-dependent. He focuses on the peace instead of facing what he really is.

He finishes this one out anyway, if not for Donghyuck then for his mother. Is this what she would want? On the one hand, now that Mom is dead, it’s like the final thread that’s been holding them together has been cut. On the other hand, he can’t leave him so vulnerable like this. Donghyuck will have to do more work when he’s gone, surely, but no longer can Mark be that person he needs. So he will have to find someone else. He probably never will.

Instead Mark watches Donghyuck’s body contract as he goes, panting and breathless, and in the moment he thinks he hears Donghyuck say something, something along the lines of _"_ _you used to love me."_ Something like a whisper through a window, a white light in a blackout.

That’s a thought for another time.

But for now? For now it’s _faster, harder_ _please_. 

For now it’s _put me on my knees._


End file.
